Kristol calls Paul, Cruz 'anti-military'

7/17/13 8:08 PM EDT

Republican senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are helping "undermine the military's chain of command," according to Bill Kristol, the influential conservative commentator and founder of the Weekly Standard.

In a brief editorial published Tuesday* morning, Kristol accused the two tea-party senators of being "anti-military" because they had joined Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand's effort to remove the chain of command from military sexual assault cases.

"Sens. Paul and Cruz are signing on to Sen. Gillibrand's proposal to undermine the military's chain of command on behalf of the pseudo-crisis of military sexual assault," Kristol wrote, suggesting that the two Senators migh be guilty of "media grandstanding."

Sen. Gillibrand's goal, strongly opposed by the Pentagon, is to create a new prosecution system for major military crimes; Paul and Cruz's support gives her the ability to cite a bipartisan coalition of supporters. (More on all that here.)

Both Sens. Paul and Cruz have yet to respond to Kristol's charge that their support for Gilibrand's effort makes them anti-military.

*Kristol's item was published Tuesday morning, not Wednesday morning, as this post initially stated.